WebChangeMonitor / News: Recent posts

Release 26.04 brings mostly requested new features. The address to fix come colour issues, how HTTP headers are operated (to not duplicate header entries unnecessary), improving the handling of UTF-8, esp. in XML and JSON files and to minimise also attached windows when minimising the main application. As usual, 3rd party libraries used have been updated to integrate security patches. Remember, WCM is also distributed for Windows on ARM64 devices (WoA64), natively compiled, e.g., for Windows Surface users.

Release 26.02 brings quite a few new features. First of all, FRs have addressed to fix bugs and implemented new features on request, like handling web page addresses with spaces gracefully in macros. As a new feature, Dark Mode was implemented as well as tuning of colours and HiDPI has been improved (make sure to setup the icons pixel size for the item list through the settings accordingly if you want to use HiDPI). 3rd party libraries used have been updated as usual to take care about security patches. Finally, WCM is now also distributed for Windows on ARM64 devices (WoA64), natively compiled using LLVM compilers.

This time, in release 25.12 two more FRs have been implemented on request: Search the result via RegEx for specific patterns (on update...) and accept change of the line where to search from in "Find in content" dialogs. Furthermore, tiny bugs have been fixed and, as usual, 3rd party libraries used have been updated to follow security patches. Finally, WCM is now created using a new compiler to address issues with the sp-called "ucrt" library that were caused by 3rd party libraries being developed for newer compilers already. On Windows, WCM now uses MinGW/GCC v15.1.0 for those interested.

Dear all,

release 25.10 implements quite a few new feature requests and updates several libraries to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. In particular, the core network library cURL was updated to the next version while dropping 32 bit support. For now, I still provide WCM 32 bit version but with an older cURL release. As posted earlier, its 32 bit releases of WCM will be dropped as well in the near future. Let me know if that would be an issue for you!
WebChangeMonitor on Windows Store will be updated soon, too - the code-signing and verification process always takes some time...

Dear all,
since cURL, one of the core libraries used in WCM has dropped support for 32 bit operating systems, it will become hard to maintain 32 bit version of WCM. It is therefore likely, that 32 bit support needs to be dropped sooner or later. If you need to use 32 bit, please tell why in the forums an/or as feature request such that I can count what influence this would have. Thank you for your feedback!

Dear all,

release 25.08, updates several libraries to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. In particular, the core library wxWidgets was updated to the next major version. Several reported (minor) bugs have been fixed and as a new requested feature, WCM can now also delay is operations on power events.
Some of you may have seen already: WCM is not also available through the Windows Store. To do so. a signing and validation process is required by the Store rules, therefore, the update in the store will usually be be delayed slightly.

Dear all,

release 25.06, as usual,updates several libraries to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. Additionally a few bug-fixes took place related to ignore items being no displayed correctly sometimes in the UI. especially, the sqlite library was updated to hopefully also fix a recent (but very rare and random) crash bug.

Dear all,

release 25.04 updated the core library t a more recent version addressing a few minor glitches. As usual, other libraries are updated to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. A macro conflict (inability to use %contentfile) was resolved. As a new feature, you can now also compare against previous values when using the interpreter. This makes, e.g., price monitoring even easier. The "missing plot axis bug" has been fixed. WCM now also allows to save the application configuration settings on demand just like the item configuration.

Dear all,

release 25.02 provides a new feature: Move the item up/down from menu which was requested change in case you can only use the menu. Also, as usual, all other libraries are updated to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. Especially the plotting library was modernised to have a new facelift. For developers, the build system now can create Makefiles such that you can build WCM on platforms not shipping Code::Blocks or that are unable to use UI based build tools.

Dear all,

release 24.12 provides a new feature: To copy the settings from one item directly to another. This is helpful if you have a few items monitored on the same platform. Here, when setting up new item for that platform, you can easily synchronise all settings at once (except the address of course). Also, as usual, several other libraries (namely wxSQLite and cURL) are updated as well to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes.

Dear all,

release 24.10 upgrades the core library (wxWidgets) to a more recent release. Also, as usual, several other libraries are updated as well to stay up-to-date with latest security fixes. Furthermore, the translation files have been updated in both: The repository for translators and the packaged common and German translation.

Dear all,

release 24.08 of the new 2-months release cycle upgrades several libraries to stay up-to-date with latest security related fixes. Furthermore, some code clean-up has been performed. It is recommenced to update to this version.

Dear all,

release 24.06 of the new 2-months release cycle first of all upgrades the core library of the application which should fix a few UI glitches here and there (rarely noticeable). Furthermore minor bugs have been fixed, a few related to Linux and others, e.g. related to the empty logs in the UI. Some new features haven been implemented, where one is a more detailed RegEx testbed to play around with the settings to tune content filters. Other libraries have been updated to stay up-to-date with latest security related fixes.

Dear all,

release 24.04 is the second release in the new release cycle as announced: Every 2 months (unless you give me good reasons to speed-up things). This release brings new (requested) features: 1.) the ability to run filters on the content line-by-line, 2.) a new RegEx filter (for the line-by-line option), 3.) an option to disable the icon in the task bar (system tray) globally. Furthermore, a few minor bugs (actually warnings) have been fixed. Finally, and as usual, the core libraries have been updated to stay up-to-date with latest security related fixes.

Dear all,

release 24.02 is the first release in the new release cycle as announced: Every 2 months (unless you give me good reasons to speed-up things). This release mainly addresses security fixes and JSON flaws. It updates the CURL utility library to a new major release. Also, a new compiler has been used to build the application.

Dear all,

WebChangeMonitor has become pretty stable, feature rich and from my personal point of view even feature complete.
Therefore, I decided to change the release cycle from monthly to every second month (meaning the next releases 02/24, 04/24, 06/24 and so on...).
Those releases will focus on continuos updates with respect to security and stability.

I would like to thank the community at that point in time to come to this point in the development of WebChangeMonitor.... read more

Dear all,

release 23.12 brings security fixes that are a result of an extensive source code audit with the famous CppCheck tool (and others). Underlying code has been optimised accordingly. Additionally core libraries have been updated as usual, partially to address security issues. The translation files have been updated, such that translators can work on the new translations (please don't forget to send updates the developers!). Logging information has been harmonised, such that it can be parsed easier. Finally, accessing the statistics database (StatsDB) is way faster now - i.e. deleting items during clean-up went from minutes to a few seconds.

Dear all,

release 23.11 bring a new feature: to run a command following an update of content only in the case a certain patter is found in the (updated) content. This is helpful if you want to track special offers labelled with e.g. "white Thursday". ;-) Furthermore, some UI layout glitches have been fixed and the wxSQlite database layer has been updated. Additionally, starting with this release a none-optimised version is provided that should fix crashes on some Intel processors.

Dear all,

release 23.10 brings updates to the main core library (wxWidgets) and others, namely cURL, PugiXML, JSONCons. This is to keep up to date with latest fixes, security issues and new functions. Additionally, help and hints as well as debugging options have been improved. Also a few UI glitches have been addressed. Two new macros can be used to identify the host WCM is running on (e.g to be used in email reporting).

Dear all,

release 23.09 brings again new features that have been requested by users. Additionally, it will bring some utility functions like a RegEx test bed to help creating powerful queries. Also, some minor UI glitches have been addressed and core libraries have been updated to address security issues.

Dear all,

release 23.08 concentrates on requested features like saving table settings, word wrap in dialog filed with long texts and improving RegEx options. Furthermore, some re-factoring has been done to prepare WCM for upcoming new functions and make it more flexible. Finally, the log dialog has been re-vamped to make it more intuitive and less cluttered in general. As usual, core libraries have been updated to address security fixes.

Dear all,

besides other new features, release 23.07 will bring full proxy support (including user name and password) which was limited previously. Based on user reports, some feature requests like allowing to specify DNS servers have been implemented. Logging to HTML files (content-/ping-log) is now threaded to avoid UI freezes in case the logging files get large, which may happen when logging with high frequency and not limiting the log entries in the HTML log file. However, it is always recommended to rotate HTML log files such that they don't grow infinitely. Once again, core libraries have been updated to address security fixes.

Dear all,

release 23.06 will update core libraries and is compiled using a newer compiler (GCC version 13). This switch was necessary to support several C++20 (and later) functions. These changes might result in an improved performance but are expected to be "under the hood" mostly. Certainly, a few bugs have been addressed and fixed as well as feature requests have been addressed. Also, if you use the "Limit sequential checks to broken hosts" option, you can enforce/resume checks manually now.

Dear all,

release 23.05 implements quiet a lot new features, most of them requested by users. There are native OS notifications as an alternative to the custom implemented ones. Each of the meanwhile 3 notification types has its pros and cons. So just select the one that fits most to your needs (not to forget that you can define what type of notification you want to see). Also, HTTP POST is supported now making it possible to access content of webpages that use input forms and a button/action to show certain content. Additionally, tracking items with certain content has been improved a lot and you can use WCM now to obtains "histories" - e.g. prices, stock values etc. You can also plot these nicely. You can read more about this here: https://sourceforge.net/p/webchangemon/forum/tips_tricks/thread/cf86dd2614/ As usual, core libs have been updated to catch up with security patches. Finally, quite a few bugs have been fixed to close open tickets.

Dear all,

release 23.04 implements quite a few feature requests from users and fixes reported bugs. It furthermore improves the UI and the German translation has been updated. Also, the general translation has been updated as well, so please, if you can, acknowledge https://sourceforge.net/p/webchangemon/forum/development/thread/ab53fffb0f/.